The Original Tree Huggers: Let Us Not Forget Their Sacrifice On Earth Day

“If a tree is saved
even at the cost of one’s head, it’s worth it.” Amrita Devi

Nearly 280 years ago, the sacrifice of a brave woman, Amrita
Devi, would have ripple effects in one of India’s most vibrant environmental
movements called the Chipko Andolan in the 1970s. Amrita Devi belonged to the Bishnoi community
that is known for its great love for conservation. The Bishnoi faith respects the sanctity and
sacredness of all forms of life and their tenets include prohibition on killing
animals and felling of green trees. Bishnois also worship the Khejri tree, Prosopis cineraria,
considered a critical life force in these desert communities.

As the story goes, the King of Jodhpur sent his soldiers to
the Bishnois villages to cut green trees to build his new palace. As the
soldiers began cutting the Khejri trees with their axes, Amrita Devi, a
Bishnoi woman, ran to stop the felling.She hugged a Khejri tree to protect it from the blows and begged them to
stop.The soldiers asked her for a bribe
to stop the cutting; Amrita Devi was unmoved and told them that it was an insult to her
faith to offer a bribe. The soldiers took to violence and struck her with an axe. When her three daughters witnessed the brutality,
they rushed and hugged the trees as well and were also killed by the soldiers.Soon the word spread like fire around the village of
Khejarli and others joined in, hugging trees in a nonviolent protest. The soldiers continued to mercilessly kill people, both young and old, and the massacre led to the sacrifice of nearly 363 Bishnois, who died protecting their beloved sacred tree.

Illustration by Jillian Gilliland

When the king learned about the carnage, he was repentant
and forbade any killing of animals and cutting of trees in the Bishnois
territories. Even to this day, one can
spot the endangered Black Buck, peacocks and other wild life and tree cover
where the Bishnois communities live in Rajasthan. It is no wonder that the Bishnois are considered as among the earliest conservationists in the world.

Fast Forward to 1970s

“Soil is ours. Water
is ours. Ours are these forests. Our forefathers raised
them. It’s we who must protect them.” A song from the Chipko Movement in India

The Chipko
Movement is a great example of a Gandhian movement that was based on nonviolent
principles of satyagraha. Chipko means to hug, and this movement is synonymous
with the enduring images of rural women hugging their community trees to stop
rampant deforestation.In the Garhwal Himalayan
region of Uttarakhand in the 70s, there was rapid environmental degradation due to commercial logging.
It became clear, especially to women, that logging was destroying their forests
and threatening their access to key forest resources needed for their daily
sustenance.

Archival photo of the Chipko Movement, where women battled guns and threats to protect their forests.

Soon villagers
began organizing themselves in small groups to organize against
logging.A pioneering Gandhian
grassroots activist, Chandi Prasad Bhatt, mobilized communities to stop the
destruction of the forests. He was joined by hundreds of women, who were on the
front lines of the resistance—marching and rallying to protect their community
forests and formed human chains to hug towering old growth trees. This kind of
environmentalism was inherently linked to their survival; the women recognized
that their livelihoods and wellbeing were intertwined with ecological
protection.

“This
movement of the poor women was not a conservation movement per se, but a
movement to demand the rights of local communities over their local resources.
The women wanted the first right over the trees, which they said were the basis
for their daily survival. Their movement explained to the people of India, that
not poverty, but extractive and exploitative economies were the biggest
polluter,” writes Sunita Narain, director of Center for Science and
Environmental in New Delhi. The
impact of the Chipko movement had spread far and wide beyond the state of Uttarakhand and led to the
government issuing a ban on felling of trees for 15 years until the green cover
depleted by deforestation was restored. And the legacy of tree hugging continues
to this day, as do the challenges for people's access to community forests and threats from ongoing forest degradation.

Today

“Forest is Our Mother.
Our life sustains on her.

Our spirituality is
tied to the trees.”

An adivasi woman from Jharkhand Save the Forest Movement

Adivasi women play a crucial role in Jharkhand's Save the Forest Movement

A few months ago, I had the privilege of meeting a group of
adivasi (indigenous) women in the state of Jharkhand, who are mobilizing their
communities to protect their forests, as well as educating others on their rights over
natural resources.Jharkhand, meaning
the land of forests, has seen some of the most vibrant people’s movements to
protect forests and lands from mining and other extractive activities.An adivasi woman, Suryamani Bhagat, has been
on the forefront of the Jungle Bachao Andolan, Save the Forest Movement, in her
state.

During a conversation with Suryamani and other adivasi women
from the movement, I learned how they are deeply connected to the forest.
“Forest is our Mother. Our life sustains on her and our spirituality is tied to
the trees,” said Suman Munda, a young tribal woman and forest activist.Over the past many years, adivasi women and
men have joined hands to reclaim their rights over their community forests; the
have created forest watch committees to ensure there is no illegal cutting of
the trees, and they are raising awareness on the Forest Rights Act passed in
2006 to enable forest dwelling communities to access resources that have been
denied to them as a result of the continuation of oppressive colonial forest laws.

“At first there were many injustices against adivasis.
People used to think forests belonged to the forest department and some
adivasis were jailed and beaten for using the forest produce. We realized that
we needed to organize and assert our rights and protect our jungles,” she
says.Suryamani also shared that the
forest department would promote monoculture plantations of Eucalyptus and
Acacia varieties in their rich, diverse jungles that had little to no value for adivasis, who relied on
indigenous trees like Sal, Mahua and Amla for their foods, medicines and
rituals.

Suryamani, second from left, is one of the eloquent and passionate leaders of Save the Forest Movement

In India,
mining, hydroelectric and nuclear power projects, industries, among others, are
displacing thousands of farmers, fisher folks, pastoralists, artisans and indigenous people from their homelands.Historian,
Ramachandra Guha notes how the environmental movement in India arose out of
the imperative of human survival. “This was environmentalism of the poor,” he wrote.
This“empty-belly environmentalism,”
where women and girls in India, undoubtedly the poorest, who are most acutely
affected by hunger because of the multi-faceted discrimination they face, find
themselves on the frontlines of many people’s movements against land and other
resource grabs, not out of choice but from the sheer will to protect their livelihoods and dignity, their identity and culture.

From the brave sacrifice of one Bishnoi woman to the long
movement building of women of the Chipko Movement to the ongoing struggles of
adivasi women in the Save the Forest Movement in Jharkhand—they all exemplify
why it is crucial for women to have equal access and control over natural resources. Environmental movements globally can learn from these bold uprisings of women and make greater commitments to build more diverse and inclusive movements to
ensure that indigenous women and women of color are active participants in these struggles and are able to share their vital experiences and perspectives on
environmental protection.

The Indigenous Mahua tree is considered as a boon to adivasi communities

As I was said goodbye to Suryamani in her village in Jharkhand, I asked
her what changes she had noticed in the forests since the Save the Jungle
Movement began. “Our forests are regenerating, she said. "The birds and animals are
returning, and we also spotted a leopard." I also wondered what the mainstream urban community could learn from the mobilizations of adivasi communities in Jharkhand. “Our life is
bound with Nature. You can learn from that,” she said.

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